During subterranean drilling and completion operations, a pipe or other conduit is lowered into a borehole in an earth formation during or after drilling operations. Such pipes are generally configured as multiple pipe segments to form a “string”, such as a drill string or production string. As the string is lowered into the borehole, additional pipe segments are coupled to the string by various connection mechanisms, such as threaded couplings. Such coupling is referred to as “make up”. During make up, stabbing guides are used to aid human workers in aligning pin to box threads and preventing face damage and connection failure.
An iron roughneck is a piece of hydraulic machinery used to automatically connect and disconnect segments of pipe in a modern drilling operation. In more detail, an iron roughneck allows for pipe segments to be manipulated as they are hoisted into and out of a borehole without having a human directly manipulating the segments. Such iron roughnecks may be controlled by external controllers. One issue, however, that may still require human intervention is that while automatic, the roughnecks may not be adept at aligning the segments such that face damage does not occur.
Various power and/or communication signals may be transmitted through the pipe segments via a “wired pipe” configuration. Such configurations include electrical, optical or other conductors extending along the length of selected pipe segments or string segments. The conductors are operably connected between pipe segments by a variety of configurations.
One such configuration includes a threaded male-female configuration often referred to as a pin-box connection. The pin box connection includes a male member, i.e., a “pin end” that includes an exterior threaded portion, and a female member, i.e., a “box end”, that includes an interior threaded portion and is configured to receive the pin in a threaded connection.
Some wired pipe configurations include a transmission device mounted on the tip of the pin end as well as in the box end. The transmission device, or “coupler,” can transmit power, data or both to an adjacent coupler. The coupler in the pin end is typically connected via a coaxial cable or other means to the coupler in the box end.